Pennsylvania

Now the Trump administration, using the upside-down argument that regulation itself deters quality care, has heeded the industry’s request to vastly scale back the use of fines against nursing homes that put patients at risk or harm them.

A Pennsylvania woman who served more than seven years in prison for insurance fraud and the unrelated death of a patient at a now-defunct nursing home has been charged for what police say was a $322,200 swindle of an 89-year-old man.

Pennsylvania’s Attorney General files lawsuit against Grane Health Co., a Pittsburgh-based nursing home chain, alleging that the company “that it failed to provide basic care, falsified records, and billed the Commonwealth and residents for services never provided.”

While some states have passed laws requiring nursing homes to notify patients and families when a registered sex offender moves in, a Target 11 investigation revealed that no such law exists in Pennsylvania.

Six months after the Pennsylvania Department of Health faced new scrutiny and criticism over its enforcement of quality care in nursing homes, data show it has quietly been increasing the penalties assessed to substandard operators.

Special agents with the State Attorney General’s office, converged on a local nursing home Tuesday. The agents served a search warrant, at Saint Mary’s Home East. But they are releasing little details, on why they are there.